Re: which distribution to choose

On Friday 03 December 2004 12:36, Bob Jones wrote:
> I can only vouch for 2 distributions that are new and have good
> community support and updates.  Fedora Core 3 (http://fedora.redhat.com)
> downloadable at
> http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/iso/

I only have a minor grip with Fedora. Fedora's lifecycle is too short (in my 
opinion) to be considered as a 'production' system. Fedora's lifecycle is 
between 9 and 12 months.

> and Mandrake 10.1 Community Edition available at
> http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#10.1c.  

I would recomend go with the Official version of MandrakeLinux 10.1. Do a 
network install using the mini-iso (8MB) available in any mirror, like this 
one:

ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrake/official/10.1/i586/install/images/boot.iso

> A good firewall package 
> that works very well (at least it does for me on the 4 systems I
> administer) is Firestarter available at http://www.fs-security.com.  For
> ipsec vpn serving, look at Freeswan at http://www.freeswan.org.

On Mandrake you can use Shorewall (is aprt of the distro) to set up a firewall 
quite easily:  http://www.shorewall.net/

> Fedora Core 3 comes pre-configured to run SELinux in enforced mode (will
> deny access rather than just warn of a problem) for enhanced security.
> Both of these distributions can be setup with the apps you are seeking
> (apache/squid for proxy, iptables with or without the firestarter
> enhancements and interface, tripwire, openVPN/Freeswan) quite easily.

> Additionally, both distributions support both a manual and an automatic
> update system -- manually with up2date and automatic with the yum daemon
> for FC3 and either a manual or scripted/CRON'ed urmpi command for Mandrake.

If you know Debian, yum and urpmi are apt-get-like tools.


Regards,
Josep
-- 
Josep L. Guallar-Esteve		Eastern Radiologists, Inc.
Systems and PACS Administration  http://www.easternrad.com

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